Friday, February 01, 2008

What a tangled web we weave

Who would have thought the NYT
would be running an expose of Bill Clinton? Times change.

Late on Sept. 6, 2005, a private plane carrying the Canadian mining
financier Frank Giustra touched down in Almaty, a ruggedly picturesque city in
southeast Kazakhstan ... Unlike more established competitors, Mr. Giustra was
a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan ... But what his fledgling company
lacked in experience, it made up for in connections. Accompanying Mr. Giustra
on his luxuriously appointed MD-87 jet that day was a former president of the
United States, Bill Clinton.

At the midnight banquet with Kazakhstan's president, which Giustra attended,
Bill Clinton rose to fulsomely praise Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, a man the NYT described by saying his "19-year stranglehold on the country has all but quashed political dissent."

Mr. Nazarbayev walked away from the table with a propaganda coup, after Mr.
Clinton expressed enthusiastic support for the Kazakh leader’s bid to head
an international organization that monitors elections and supports democracy.
Mr. Clinton’s public declaration undercut both American foreign policy and
sharp criticism of Kazakhstan’s poor human rights record by, among others,
Mr. Clinton’s wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

Within two days, corporate records show that Mr. Giustra also came up a
winner when his company signed preliminary agreements giving it the right to
buy into three uranium projects controlled by Kazakhstan’s state-owned
uranium agency, Kazatomprom.

The monster deal stunned the mining industry, turning an unknown shell
company into one of the world’s largest uranium producers in a transaction
ultimately worth tens of millions of dollars to Mr. Giustra, analysts said.

Then the NYT puts the knife in.

Just months after the Kazakh pact was finalized, Mr. Clinton’s charitable
foundation received its own windfall: a $31.3 million donation from Mr.
Giustra that had remained a secret until he acknowledged it last month. The
gift, combined with Mr. Giustra’s more recent and public pledge to give the
William J. Clinton Foundation an additional $100 million, secured Mr. Giustra
a place in Mr. Clinton’s inner circle, an exclusive club of wealthy
entrepreneurs in which friendship with the former president has its
privileges.

That proves it. But that all depends on what "proves" proves. Just
because the Giustra's donation to Clinton came after the uranium deal
doesn't mean the two were connected, does it? Probably mindful of this, the rest
of the article goes into the extremely suggestive nature of Clinton's visit;
it's hurried nature and general tenor in the context of Bill Clinton's dealings
with such worthies as Ronald
Burkle and Vinod
Gupta.

One of the persons left holding the bag was Hillary Clinton, who was made to
look like a chump by her husband's antics. Hillary had earlier issued dire
warnings about about the Kazakhstan's president. Eleven months later, her
husband was lionizing him in public. "Mr. Clinton’s spokesman said
the former president saw 'no contradiction' between his statements in Kazakhstan
and the position of Mrs. Clinton." In a certain universe, contradictions
don't contradict.

Eleven months before Mr. Clinton’s statement, Mrs. Clinton co-signed a
commission letter to the State Department that sounded “alarm bells” about
the prospect that Kazakhstan might head the group. The letter stated that
Kazakhstan’s bid “would not be acceptable,” citing “serious
corruption,” canceled elections and government control of the news media.

In a written statement to The Times, Mr. Clinton’s spokesman said the
former president saw “no contradiction” between his statements in
Kazakhstan and the position of Mrs. Clinton, who said through a spokeswoman,
“Senator Clinton’s position on Kazakhstan remains unchanged.”

1 Comments:

And Clinton’s supporters are the very ones that hint darkly about a too-cozy relationship between Pres Bush and the House of Saud. And who also say that the Bush family’s past relationship with the oil industry has too much impact on national policies.

Few people know that fugitive business man Mark Rich – pardoned by Bill Clinton – was involved in the Oil for Food scam – and also made large contributions to the Clinton Presidential library.

But these very real links to criminal activity will go without comment from the Left – in much the same way that the highly credible rape allegations are given a pass by the feminists.